When You Feel Like You Need to Be Amazing and You Are Fresh Out

My oldest will turn eleven this year. So basically, I’ve been tired for a decade. Stacey Thacker is that friend and that voice in my head telling me I’m going to be okay. And her book is your permission slip to stop feeling like you have to be all things to all people all the time. Fresh Out of Amazing: Opening Your Heart to God’s Unexpected Invitation comes out today and Stacey is here to share some of the story behind the story with us.

What do you do when you are living out the storyline of your life and you don’t like the way your character is behaving? For a long time, I didn’t like my character—and I didn’t know how to fix her. So I ignored Miss Fresh-Out-of-Amazing because no one else seemed to notice. After all, people usually don’t linger long enough to look intently. They accept “fine” as the answer to “How are you doing?” and move along their merry way.

Hiding was the easy part. And I did it pretty well.

Then one day everything began to change. I found myself desperately wanting to quit my job, and I went so far as to write my resignation letter. That course of action sounds perfectly respectable…except the job I really wanted to quit wasn’t at a fancy office that accepts resignations on the third Tuesday of the month. It was the one job I had always known I wanted: being a mom.

But where does a mom go when she wants to resign? You see the problem, don’t you?

I’m guessing you feel the same way. I didn’t really want to resign. I just wanted to escape needing to be amazing and finding myself fresh out. But can I tell you something I’ve learned recently? Fresh out of amazing keeps bubbling up to the top because it has deep roots in my life. Does it for you too?

That idea of deep roots reminds me of the movie Groundhog Day. Bill Murray plays a weatherman stuck in a time loop. Every day he wakes up and discovers it is still Groundhog Day. His version of living the same day over and over again is slightly funnier than the one I’m playing out. The struggle is real. I’m practically a professional at feeling this way. In some ways I would tell you it is simply what I do to keep going. It is how I get things done. Or, lately, why I’m not getting anything done.

Are you nodding your head in agreement? Finally, somebody has pulled back the curtain and revealed that the wizard behind the whole operation is really just a girl gasping for air and needing to be rescued. I get the mixed-up feelings, though, of being found out yet happy I can stop pretending. We are more alike than you know.

Being rescued is a pretty glorious thing and I longed for it. The day I wanted to quit all the things Jesus started rescuing my weary heart. But if you have images of taking luxurious baths and scores of Merry Maids arriving at my door you can think again. Life didn’t actually get easier, circumstantially, in fact you might say it got harder.

One morning, I grabbed my oversized cup of coffee and sank down deep into the red chair where I meet with Jesus every morning. Of course he was there waiting for me just as he always is. I had much to say to him, and I’m grateful that he graciously absorbed it all. I told him in no uncertain terms that I was done, I had nothing left to give to anyone. I wanted to sit in that big chair forever and pull the blanket over my head. I told my heavenly Father, “Lord, I’m fresh out of amazing in every way.” And what I heard in that moment in the depths of my heart was “Jesus loves me.” Then, as if Jesus himself were sitting next to me in the red chair, I heard him say, “I know you feel fresh out of amazing, sweet girl. But do not fear. I do not waste anything you experience in your life. You are exactly where I want you. I am never out of amazing—and it’s time for you to see me big in your life.”

Tears streamed down my face, and I picked up my Bible. At the Spirit’s leading, I turned to a tiny book in the Old Testament called Habakkuk. It was time for me to begin the process of healing. It was slow in coming, but in the light of dawn on that April morning, healing quietly began. My own sweet and bitter experience of God’s providence was unfolding in a song.

Stacey Thacker is a wife and the mother of four girls. Creator of the popular blog Mothers of Daughters, she is a writer and speaker who loves God’s Word. Her passion is to connect with women and encourage them in their walks with God. Her books include Hope for the Weary Mom, the Hope for the Weary Mom Devotional: A 40 Day Journey, and Fresh Out of Amazing. You can find her blogging at staceythacker.com and hanging out on Instagram and Twitter @staceythacker usually with a cup of coffee in her hand.

Ah-yes! I agree that every mother has probably felt this way. I certainly have felt like I was buried under the weight of the daily grind. I love your solution- not a change in circumstance or a newer, nicer this or that, but simply healing from God. Great post!